MAGNET Beyond project envisions the 4G wireless world

The World Wireless Research Forum predicts seven trillion devices for seven billion people by 2017. Anticipating a future in which individual consumers have hundreds, or even thousands of wireless devices, the EU-funded €16.3 million MAGNET Beyond project has designed a wireless network structure that will easily and securely link them all. The 4G “Network of Everything” would be a secure multi-network, multi-device, multi-user personal network that gives users constant access to all their devices, no matter what the distance is between them.

The MAGNET Beyond (My personal Adaptive Global NET and Beyond) project has 30 partners from 15 countries, and builds upon the findings of earlier projects PACWOMAN and MAGNET. The project names user-centricity, personalization and personal networking as the guiding design principles, promising that no user in the 4G era will have to wave their laptop around to get a wireless signal, or fiddle with the Bluetooth settings on their phone. The MAGNET Beyond proposal, called the Personal Network, will integrate the currently used Personal Area Networks with wireless wide area networks, delivering a far broader area of access for users.

The goals of the MAGNET Beyond project are to create roadmaps for the development and evolution of PNs, generate system specs for the first generation of PNs, design cost-effective platforms, gauge the market potential, and introduce a pilot program. By achieving this, it is hoped that companies will have a solid foundation to work with when designing future wireless devices.

“We have a user-centric approach,” reveals Professor Liljana Gavrilovska, Technical Manager of the MAGNET Beyond project. “With the overall objective to design, develop, demonstrate and validate the concept of a flexible PN that supports resource-efficient, robust, ubiquitous personal services in a secure, heterogeneous networking environment for mobile users.”

Facevsion's FXexpress Pro brings 1080p video conferencing to the mass market

FaceVsion at IFA 2009

Full HD video conferencing has been available for some time - provided you can afford to spend over $20,000 on a product like Cisco's TelePresence 500. Until now that is. FaceVsion's FXexpress Pro is an ExpressCard-based hardware accelerator with an HDMI input, capable of encoding and decoding 1080p H.264 video at 30 frames per second in real-time for 1080p video conferencing - and it's available for under $200.

Facevsion's previous product, the FXexpress, was designed to be used in conjunction with a 720p webcam. The FXexpress Pro's HDMI input allows you to plug in just about any HD camcorder and send out a 1080p video stream. The fact it's based on ExpressCard, and doesn't rely on the host CPU for processing, means you can use it on any old laptop with an ExpressCard slot, including inexpensive and low-powered netbooks like the Lenovo IdeaPad S10 or the HP Mini 2140 - as well as any desktop machine with a free PCI Express slot by using an adapter card.

For more information, visit www.facevsion.com.

HP’s SkyRoom makes videoconferencing easy (and cheap)

HP SkyRoom videoconferencing allows users to collaborate quickly, easily and at a minimum cost

At the risk of sounding antiquated, it doesn’t seem so long ago that a face-to-face business meeting involved one or both parties having to jump on an airplane. Teleconferencing helped a little but video conferencing certainly changed the way we do business - although the expense often meant that it was used sparingly. HP has just introduced new videoconferencing software that it claims is not only high-definition and offers live-real-time collaboration, it is also affordable and has no subscription fees.

HP SkyRoom users can share any type of application supported on their PC or workstation, including office documents, streaming video and interactive 3-D applications. To connect to a contact, users simply click their name and the live SkyRoom session begins. To share media or documents, the host simply clicks the relevant material.

The multi-way videoconferencing sessions allow remote users to view their host’s desktop and its applications, including displays of 2-D and 3-D graphics, full-motion video and multi-display on a system that only has a 2-D graphics card.

To reduce bandwidth and network traffic, the presenter’s software only monitors the changes on the screen, not the entire display. It compresses and encrypts the information before sending it to the participants, where it is decrypted, decompressed and updated.

“Finally, video meetings with genuine eye contact and natural human interaction are as easy as starting an instant messaging connection,” said Jim Zafarana, vice president and general manager, Workstations, HP. “It takes business productivity and collaboration to a completely new level when we can connect people around the world in a day via HP SkyRoom and let them get home to family dinner and bedtime stories – without the wear and tear of travel.”

HP expects that the software can be used for real-time collaboration for up to four people, over a standard business network for US$149 from HP (there is a small selection of videos on the SkyRoom website). Initially, HP SkyRoom will be free for a trial period on new HP business notebooks and PCs and will be included as a free standard feature on certain mobile workstations and desktops. The software will also be suitable for use on Dell, Lenovo or Sun workstations and PCs if they meet the minimum technology requirements.

Teleavia type P111 - high definition TV circa 1958

Michael Bennett-Levy discusses the Teleavia type P111

Michael Bennett-Levy's extraordinary collection of early technologies went under the hammer at Bonhams in London on Wednesday with 90% of the 758 lots on offer sold for a total of £683,384. A tidy sum no doubt, but having had the opportunity to examine the treasure trove closely, and the benefit of speaking at length to Bennett-Levy about the significance of key items, we can't help but conclude that many pieces were a steal for shrewd investors. The largest privately held collection of early televisions in the world - including 26 pre-war sets - made up a large slice of the auction and in the first of a series of interviews, Michael Bennett-Levy talks to Gizmag about outstanding items in his collection, starting with the much sought after Teleavia type P111, a rare 1958 console-stand television by Citroën DS designer Flaminio Bertroni that was not only a hallmark in style, but also one of the earliest examples of high-definition TV.

One look at this television and it's no surprise to learn that its designer was also responsible for the distinctive Citroen DS which was first produced in 1955. It features a 19-inch screen with white mask, in a tapered-hood case in deep purple with a gold trim. The controls and speaker sit in the rectangular box below and the screen can be turned independently through 150-degrees as well as angled vertically.

The set is also "dual standard", with capability to show 441 lines (which became the standard from 1952) along with a high definition facility of 819 lines, meaning it is high-definition even by today's standards. This system began in France in 1949 but never really got off the ground. Bennett-Levy speculates that Teleavia may have been trying to "future-proof" the P111 in case the French government decided to resurrect the service.

The television sold for £2,400 at the Bonhams auction.

EU launches free EGNOS satnav system

The European Commission has announced the official start of operations of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), a satellite based augmentation system (SBAS) that improves the accuracy of the current US Global Positioning System (GPS) and Russian GLONASS system signals from about ten meters to two meters. Like the U.S. GPS, the EGNOS Open Service is accessible free of charge to any user equipped with a GPS/SBAS compatible receiver within the EGNOS coverage area, which includes most European states and has the built-in capability to be extended to other regions, such as North Africa and EU neighboring countries. Most receivers sold today in Europe meet that requirement.

EGNOS is composed of transponders aboard three geostationary satellites and a ground network of about 40 positioning stations and four control centers, all interconnected. It is Europe’s first contribution to satellite navigation, and is a precursor to Galileo, the global satellite navigation system being developed by the European Union (EU), which will be accurate down to the meter range and should be operational by 2013. The EU says it is committed to supporting EGNOS long term, even after Galileo becomes operational. This includes extending its geographical scope within the coverage of the three satellites involved.

The system can support new applications in a variety of sectors such as agriculture - with high-precision spraying of fertilizers, for example - or transport, enabling automatic road-tolling or pay-per-use insurance schemes. It can also support much more precise personal navigation services, such as those to guide blind people.EGNOS will also be certified for use in aviation and other safety-critical areas, in compliance with the Single European Sky regulation. A Safety-of-Life service, that provides a warning message informing the user within six seconds in the case of a malfunction of the system, is expected to be in place by mid 2010.

GPS satellites tell us where we are, but what tells them where they are?

This is an artist's concept of a quasar (bright area with rays) embedded in the center of a galaxy. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle - SSC)

Global Positioning System (GPS) devices have permeated society to the point where millions of us rely on them daily for directions, locations and traffic avoidance (if only they could tell me where I left my car keys). GPS satellites send signals to a receiver in your handheld or car-based GPS navigator, which calculates your position on the planet based on the location of the satellites and your distance from them. The distance is determined by how long it took the signals from various satellites to reach your receiver. But have you ever thought what tells the GPS satellites where they are in the first place?

"For GPS to work, the orbital position, or ephemeris, of the satellites has to be known very precisely," said Dr Chopo Ma of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "In order to know where the satellites are, you have to know the orientation of the Earth very precisely."

Sounds easy when you say it quickly, but it’s not. Space isn’t conveniently marked out in grid lines like on a football field where it would be easy to determine Earth’s position. Making it even harder, everything in space is constantly on the move. The Earth even wobbles as it rotates due to the gravitation pull (tides) of the moon and the sun. Ma says even minor things like shifts in air and ocean currents and motions in Earth's molten core all influence our planet's orientation.

Stars too close

Just as you can use landmarks to find your place in a strange city (before you got your GPS), astronomers use landmarks in space to position the Earth. Stars have been used throughout history to navigate on Earth, but "for the extremely precise measurements needed for things like GPS, stars won't work, because they are moving, too," says Ma.

We need objects so remote that their motion is not detectable – they need to be far enough away for this to occur but also bright enough to be seen. Things like quasars, which are typically brighter than a billion suns, can be used. Scientists believe these objects are powered by giant hungry black holes feeding on nearby gas. Gas trapped in the black hole's powerful gravity is compressed and heated to millions of degrees, giving off intense light and/or radio energy.

Thankfully for us, most quasars lurk in the outer reaches of the cosmos, over a billion light years away (one light year = 6 trillion miles), and are therefore distant enough to appear stationary to us. NASA says our entire galaxy, consisting of hundreds of billions of stars, is about 100,000 light years across.

A collection of remote quasars, whose positions in the sky are known precisely, forms a map of celestial landmarks that helps to orient the Earth. The first such map, called the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF), was completed in 1995. It was made over four years of painstaking analysis of observations on the positions of about 600 objects.

Ma led a three-year effort to update and improve the precision of the ICRF map by scientists affiliated with the International Very Long Baseline Interferometry Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS) and the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Called ICRF2, it uses observations of approximately 3,000 quasars and was officially recognized as the fundamental reference system for astronomy by the IAU in August this year.

Despite the brilliance of quasars, they can’t be seen with a conventional telescope because they’re just too far away. Ma and his team had to use a special network of radio telescopes is used, called a Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI) to locate the quasars.

The larger the telescope, the better its ability to see fine detail, called spatial resolution. A VLBI network coordinates its observations into the equivalent of a single telescope as large as the entire network. VLBI networks have spanned continents and even entire hemispheres of the globe, delivering the power of a telescope thousands of miles in diameter. For instance, the VLBI observations reduced uncertainties in position to angles as small as 40 microarcseconds, about the thickness of a 0.7mm mechanical pencil lead in Los Angeles when viewed from Washington. This minimum uncertainty is about five times better than the ICRF, according to Ma.

These networks are arranged on a yearly basis as individual radio telescope stations commit time to make coordinated observations. Managing all these coordinated observations is a major effort by the IVS.

Sensitive to noise

VLBI networks are so sensitive they can detect many kinds of disturbances, called noise. Differences in atmospheric pressure and humidity caused by weather systems, flexing of the Earth's crust due to tides, and shifting of antenna locations from plate tectonics and earthquakes all affect VLBI measurements. "A significant challenge was modeling all these disturbances in computers to take them into account and reduce the noise, or uncertainty, in our position observations," said Ma.

Noise can also be generated by changes in the structure of the quasars themselves, which can be seen because of the extraordinary resolution of the VLBI networks, according to Ma.

The technique is set to become even more accurate when the European Space Agency (ESA) launches Gaia in 2012. This satellite will observe about 500,000 quasars and will likely provide the next ICRF update around 2020.

Via NASA.

Wireless optical system offers one gigabit per second transmission

The Wi-Fi connection in the HUB-Robeson Center at Penn State being used by students. Research indicates that networks in the future could use lighting systems to help transmit data (Images: Penn State)

Sending and receiving data over a wireless network is generally undertaken via radio waves. But that's not the only method. Using the optical spectrum offers the advantage of better security and blisteringly fast transfer rates to boot. Engineers from Pennsylvania State University have now succeeded in moving data outside the usual line of sight restrictions at speeds of over one gigabit per second, more than double that achieved by Siemens recently.

The Pennsylvania State University engineers have developed a system where a high-powered laser diode transmits data by converting electricity into infrared light, which then bounces off any walls and surfaces before being received by an avalanche photo diode, where it's converted back into electricity and translated into usable data.

Engineering graduate Jarir Fadlullah said when presenting the findings of the research to the SPIE Phonotics West Conference in San Francisco recently: "Unless the walls are painted solid black, there is no need to worry about transmission within a room. The optical system we have offers a very large bandwidth thus a very high speed." So just what sort of high speed are the researchers talking about?

"We can send one gigabit per second or more over a gigahertz band," said Fadlullah. That's at least twice as fast as the record Siemens recently squashedusing white LED light. The Penn State research, which was supported by the National Science Foundation, is believed to be the first where line of sight is not a requirement for blisteringly fast wireless data transfer.

Using the optical spectrum in an enclosed, windowless room will ensure that any transmitted signals do not escape and cannot be intercepted. Other similarly isolated rooms can use the same frequency without chance of interference but a multiple sensor setup could see speedy data transfer between rooms and between floors should it be required.

Wireless transfer using light offers much more than obvious speed benefits over poor old pedestrian radio waves. The optical system suffers none of the problems associated with polluted frequency bands nor the potential security risks presented as radio waves pass through certain materials. There are also certain locations where the use of radio frequencies is ill-advised, such as hospitals and installations containing navigation equipment. Light does not suffer from such restrictions.

Another possible application of the technology could be the "wireless projection of high definition television. Currently, two high definition broadcasts exceed the bandwidth of any radio system, but with a 1.6 gigabit per second gigabit system, two HD channels could be broadcast," according to professor fo electrical engineering Mohshen Kavehrad.

The researchers are currently looking at using the ultraviolet and visible light spectrums as well as the infrared used so far, but also believe that light emitting diode room lighting could be used in the system to provide environmentally-friendly blanket communication networks in the future.

Optical system could revolutionize underwater communications

Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV’s) are at the forefront of new discoveries and important research in the ocean depths, but they are still hindered by cumbersome cables that connect them to their support ships at the surface. It brings back memories of the days before radio-controlled toys, when our remote-control cars had wires coming out of them that ran up to the controllers in our hands. Now, thanks to scientists and engineers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), ROV’s may soon be set free from their tethers. The researchers have developed an undersea optical communications system, which they describe as “a virtual revolution in high-speed undersea data collection and transmission.”

ROV’s currently require cables because radio signals travel very poorly through water – the only way of instantly transferring data to and from deep submersibles is via a hard-wired connection. Data can also be sent through the water using acoustic techniques, but it travels relatively slowly and has a limited bandwidth.

WHOI’s optical system promises near-instant data transfer and real-time video from un-tethered ROV’s, autonomous underwater vehicles, and seafloor data-collection/transmission sites such as NEPTUNE. It would be used in conjunction with acoustic communications, which would take over once the vehicles moved out of optical range (presumably if you were using it to control an ROV, you would have to keep it within optical range?). Not only would this system free things up, but it would also allow for smaller, lighter ROV’s, as they wouldn’t need to heft that heavy cable around behind them. Smaller submersibles could in turn mean smaller research ships and smaller support crews, according to WHOI.

The press release from Wood's Hole isn't particularly clear on exactly how the system would work, as optical data is usually transmitted via fiber optic cables. In any case, so far its designers have achieved data rates of 10 to 20 megabytes per second, through 100 meters of water. This July, they’re planning a full-scale application, in which they will be deploying the system on an undersea data-collection/transmission site in the Northwestern US.  

'Microrings' could lead to new era in wireless communications

In a step that could see communication wires banished from homes and offices researchers have developed a miniature device capable of converting ultra-fast laser pulses into bursts of radio-frequency signals. The advance could enable all communications, from HDTV broadcasts to secure computer connections, to be transmitted from a single base station.

"This base station would be sort of a computer by itself, perhaps a card inserted into one of the expansion slots in a central computer. The central computer would take charge of all the information processing, a single point of contact that interacts with the external world in receiving and sending information,” said Minghao Qi, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University.

Ordinarily, the continuous waves of conventional radio-frequency transmissions encounter interference from stray signals reflecting off of the walls and objects inside a house or office. However, the pulsing nature of the signals produced by the new "chip-based spectral shaper" reduces the interference that normally plagues radio frequency communications, said Andrew Weiner, Purdue's Scifres Family Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Each laser pulse lasts about 100 femtoseconds, or one-tenth of a trillionth of a second. These pulses are processed using "optical arbitrary waveform technology" pioneered by Purdue researchers led by Weiner.

"What enables this technology is that our devices generate ultrabroad bandwidth radio frequencies needed to transmit the high data rates required for high resolution displays," Weiner said.

Although the technology might eventually be developed to both receive and transmit signals, initially it is likely to be commercialized in devices that only receive signals, for "one-way" traffic, such as television sets, projectors, monitors and printers, say the researchers. This is because the sending unit for transmitting data is still a little bulky. If its size can be reduced enough to allow it to be integrated into the devices, it would enable full two-way traffic, making possible the wireless operation of things like hard-disc drives and computers. The approach could also be used for transmitting wireless signals inside cars.

The researchers first create laser pulses with specific "shapes" that characterize the changing intensity of light from the beginning to end of each pulse. The pulses are then converted into radio frequency signals.

A key factor making the advance potentially useful is that the pulses transmit radio frequencies of up to 60 gigahertz, a frequency included in the window of the radio spectrum not reserved for military communications. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission does not require a license to transmit signals from 57-64 gigahertz and this unlicensed band also is permitted globally, meaning systems using 60 gigahertz could be compatible worldwide.

"There is only a very limited window for civil operations, and 60 gigahertz falls within this window," Qi said.

Ordinary computer chips have difficulty transmitting electronic signals at such a rapid frequency because of "timing jitter," or the uneven timing with which transistors open and close to process information.

This uneven "clock" timing, or synchronization, of transistors does not hinder ordinary computer chips, which have a speed of about 3 gigahertz. However, for devices switching on and off at 60 gigahertz, this jitter prevents proper signal processing.

Another complication is that the digital-to-analog converters needed to convert pulsing laser light into radio frequency signals will not work at such high frequencies.

To sidestep these limitations, researchers have previously created "bulk optics" systems, which use mirrors, lenses and other optical components arranged on a vibration-dampened table several feet long to convert and transmit the pulsed signals. However, these systems are far too large to be practical. Now, the Purdue researchers have miniaturized the bulk optical setup by thousands of times and made the technology small enough to fit on a computer chip.

The system is programmable so that it could be instructed to produce and transmit only certain frequencies and the researchers have fabricated tiny silicon "microring resonators" - devices that filter out certain frequencies and allow others to pass. A series of the microrings were combined in a programmable "spectral shaper" 100 microns wide, or about the width of a human hair. Each of the microrings is about 10 microns in diameter and the microring filter can be tuned by heating the rings, which causes them to change so that they filter different frequencies.

Purdue filed a provisional patent in January for the technology, which is at least five years away from being ready for commercialization, Qi said

Panasonic introduces KX-NT400 touchscreen IP phone

Panasonic has launched a new business phone which features a color touchscreen interface, the ability to view live video feeds and even control cameras from the phone itself, an SD card slot for data and programming backup and USB, ethernet and Bluetooth connectivity.

The first thing you notice about the new KX-NT400 IP network business telephone from Panasonic is its 5.7in 320 x 240 color LCD touchscreen user interface with 48 function buttons and a customized version of Internet Explorer for viewing corporate intranet pages. The interface gives users the opportunity to access business applications on the screen to check delivery schedules, order tracking and so on whilst talking to customers. The display can also be used to view live video feeds from up to 20 network cameras, allowing users to control tilt, pan and zoom from the phone itself.

Panasonic's Bill Taylor said that the KX-NT400 is: "perfect for locations where a PC is not practical or desirable, the stylish NT400 IP network phone enhances productivity from the back office to your home office, providing a flexible and reliable way to manage your business and personal contacts, check work applications, view network camera feeds and much more, right from your desk. And the built-in Communications Assistant software makes a number of progressive features possible, including Voice Mail Assistant, which enables users to visually manage messages on the phone’s screen."

As well as an optional module for Bluetooth to enable the use of wireless headsets, the KX-NT400 also benefits from an SD card slot which enables the backup of programming information and important data. The unit supports Power over Ethernet that allows data and electrical power to be transmitted over an ethernet cable and sports a PC LAN port and a USB port. Naturally, there's also a built-in speakerphone for hands-free calling.

The KX-NT400 is available now.

Wi-Fi and 3G could become competitors for mobile Internet access

Accessing the Internet while away from the home or office has never been easier. When there’s no Wi-Fi available users can jump on 3G broadband to get their online fix. And that’s the way it has generally been, with the two main mobile communications technologies acting as complementary services. But with the advent of Wi-Fi based municipal wireless networks, such as that launched by AT&T in New York's Times Square and by a well-known supermarket chain across all its stores, some experts say there is a strong possibility that Wi-Fi will compete with the 3G cell phone network in city areas and perhaps even become a substitute.

Wi-Fi offers users network access based on hot-spot connections through a local-area network (LAN), while 3G does so through cell phone masts forming a wide-area network (WAN). Both then provide connectivity to the web, email and other services. In theory, Wi-Fi networks should be at least three times faster than 3G broadband but, as any regular user of both services will tell you, the reality is very different. Because the 3G spectrum is a limited, licensed and therefore more valuable resource it is more efficiently managed than Wi-Fi, which operates on unlicensed spectrum. So when there is a lot of traffic on both, it is usually the Wi-Fi network users that notice it first with slow loading web pages and stuttering video and audio.

Seungjae Shin of Mississippi State University - Meridian and Martin Weiss of theUniversity of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have investigated how 3G and Wi-Fi would actually compete for users given a particular set of circumstances, costs, and availability. Their findings demonstrate which of the two technologies would be the winner in terms of market penetration and coverage percentages.

Their analysis shows that the 3G network would become more profitable as Wi-Fi coverage percentage increases, and that 3G is more favorable in areas of high population density. In contrast, Wi-Fi has the advantage when the market has a high penetration rate but a low coverage area. Until now, municipal wireless networks have not being active in big cities across the USA and the 3G cell phone service itself is relatively new and only being adopted as so-called smart phones become more prevalent and replaces old-style cell phones. As such, there has been little competition between the two wireless communications protocols.

Shin and Weiss point out that substituting Wi-Fi for 3G would cut costs of mobile workers and others who need access to broadband Internet services when not at devices connected directly to the Internet, such as desktop computers. The team also suggests that as the market matures and competition increases between the two network service systems, the detailed results of the analysis will help to serve as a guideline for providers of either system to ensure mobile internet access that is not only ubiquitous, but hopefully also cheaper for end users.

The team's study, "Analysis of mobile broadband competition: 3G vs. Wi-Fi" appears in Volume 8, 2010 of the International Journal of Mobile Communications